What One Girl Knows

No progress on those window locks, but Pittsburgh is getting a little better. We've explored a little of the South Side (great old brick buildings, great little restaurants, used bookstores, little thrift stores and such) and drove past the Waterfront (Target - just two miles away from home! An outdoor mall!), which makes us feel better about where we're living. Oh, and there is a Joseph Beth -- my favorite independent bookstore in Kentucky. The kitten now called Ella (and sometimes still Bongo Bongo) is over her cold and working on the worm issue. Piper and Rue are still kind of neurotic, but doing better.

Today is being spent in transit. Jason's mom spent the night with us in Pittsburgh. Which was a great visit -- except she doesn't like driving. So -- we drove the three hours to Dunkirk on Friday night, spent the night, drove three hours to Pittsburgh on Saturday, drove three hours back to Dunkirk this afternoon, and soon will drive three hours back to Pittsburgh. The @*&#*! things we do for mothers. Next week we're obligated to drive six hours to and from Kentucky for an early celebration of my birthday (I'm going to be so old) -- or my Mom has threatened to cry. And supposedly coming to Pittsburgh is out of the question because 1) she bought peanut butter cookies from Kroger, 2) she can only ask her friend to watch the dogs when she's flying somewhere, not driving, and 3) there's nothing to do in Pittsburgh. Which are all awfully strange reasons, in my opinion.

Nina arrives in Pittsburgh Tuesday. She and Jake are supposedly bringing beer to our apartment, to commiserate being away from New York City.

We returned to Pittsburgh Thursday evening, to find that the burners on the stove were fixed, but none of the locks on the windows. Lobos Management has been "really busy." Then today they send us a copy of the lease in the mail, only it's the old version, the one that says we can't have pets and that our rent is $25 more. After a long, exasperating phone conversation (the receptionist actually said: "I can't read the fine print on your lease. I'm not wearing my glasses.") and a visit to the management office, we finally have a copy of the CORRECT lease. But the windows remain unlocked.

The animals are all having issues. Piper loves the new/used couch, but has phobias about the small three carpeted steps leading to the bedrooms. Rue has taken to hiding in closets and shivering, and the new one (formerly known as Sophie, now unnamed -- though Jason suggests Bongo Bongo) is on two types of antibiotics for a nasty cold and worms.

Jason has found a temp job though. He starts work on Monday, in the Strip District. And yesterday we went to the Carnegie Library in Oakland, and was pleasantly surprised by the Documentary Videos and International Poetry section. The fiction section was lacking, though. But it's much better than the Astoria libraries.

Pittsburgh so far is a big thumbs down. Filthy apartment -- the WD40 drenched carpet the management company promised would be replaced (for an additional $25 tacked onto our rent each month) is still with us. The day we moved in it hadn't even been cleaned -- after calling and complaining, the carpet cleaners arrived mid-afternoon and "did the best they could" by sucking what looked and smelled like raw sewage from the apartment. There are still ugly, dirty dark stains down the hallway steps, which the cleaners were unable to remedy. We went to Walmart and bought a vacuum cleaner, which sucked up all the dead bugs and glass shards and miscellaneous pills in the corners of the room, and hopefully made it cleaner. But how much cleaner? I'll be obsessively vacuuming every day. Got it in writing from the management company that rent will be $25 less each month, at least.

Anxious about the pets, who are currently vacationing in Kentucky with my mother. I don't want them catching some kind of disease from the neverending grime, or getting bit by an exotic bug. Piper will stick mostly to the furniture, so I'm not so worried about her. But Rue gets herself into every little nook and cranny. And now we have another addition to our family -- her name is Sophie (named by my mother, not but us -- but at least it fits with the whole old-fashioned girls' names theme) and she's a tiny ten week old tabby with a rusty meow. We were supposed to get the three and a half month old Siamese, but Mom decided to keep her instead. Anyway, I shudder to imagine which grimy corners of the apartment she can squeeze herself into.

We're in Kentucky right now, having dropped Reg off from helping us move. I never appreciated how clean my mother's house was until now. Plush carpeting! Spotless bathrooms! I want Mom to come to Pittsburgh and help me clean!

Well, okay. There are a few nice things about the new apartment. The built in glass shelves in the kitchen, for example. And all the extra space. So as long as no one broke into the apartment while we've been gone, everything will be okay. Probably.